Narcicyst x SXSW: No Party in Apartheid

Josh Asen, CEO and Co-Founder of Hip Hop Diplomacy is a guestblogger and collaborator on The Imagination Age.


Hip Hop protesters at the 2010 South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.

For those of us (myself included) who missed last week's South by Southwest festival, there was one notable event that took place outside of the venues and that was a small but heartfelt protest against a private Israeli consulate party. The party featured a number of Israeli bands, including the popular Hip Hop act, Soulico, at a club in downtown Austin. However, not everyone found the timing of the party to be particularly appropriate (but since when do Israelis give a F about timing?). Iraqi-Canadian rapper The Narcicyst, alongside Syrian-American rapper Omar Offendum and Palestinian rapper Ragtop, led a rally outside the club, with bullhorns & placards, chanting "Ain't no party in apartheid!"

The reference to South Africa is apt, in my opinion and from my firsthand observation of the willful isolation of Arabs (read: Palestinians) in Israel. And the protest also strikes me as completely appropriate, if not necessary, given the announcement only a week earlier of the construction of 1600 new Israeli homes in East Jerusalem, an arrogant affront to the world community.

Narcy puts it very succinctly in an interview that was later broadcast on NPR, "Our basic thing is BDS: Boycott Divestment Sanctions. We want the people of Palestine to be represented and for them to have an identification just like everybody else in the world does.”

One of the members of Soulico, Ronen Sabbo, felt that Narcy and the other protestors were protesting against the wrong people: “They don’t know us personally, they don’t know what we are about. They don’t know that we are trying to do the opposite of any government or of any occupation or establishment. We are trying to do music with people like Arabic MCs, Arabic singers, we have Arabic instruments, and, it’s funny that they demonstrate in front of us as if we’re soldiers. We’re just musicians you know.”

But I have to admit, and Narcy says the same in his own response, the protest is not against the musicians themselves but against a government whose actions they implicitly condone by agreeing to play at their party. Narcy said, "We have no problem, we’re not here to boycott the artists per se, we did research on the artists and checked their work out and it’s not necessarily anything against them, but the Israeli consulate represents the Israeli government, regardless, so you can’t really separate the two."

Anat Gilead, Israeli consul to the US for cultural affairs, had this to say: "We’re doing culture here. We’re focusing on music and people that music can bring. That is what we’re here for.” But I can't accept that any thinking person could celebrate culture in the midst of a total disrespect for humanity.

There really is just no party in apartheid (except, unjustly, for the oppressors). The just party will be afterward, when the separation and humiliation finally come to an end and everyone can join, or at least enjoy their own, in peace.

("Ain't no party in apartheid" slogan courtesy of Narcy's excellent blog, House de Narcel.)



About Joshua Asen, Co-Founder/CEO, Hip Hop Diplomacy

After graduating from Brown University, Joshua made the first of several trips across the Atlantic to promote Hip Hop abroad. This first crossing was on behalf of storied Hip Hop label, Rocafella Records, for whom he created the label's first international promotions campaign in Paris. Later, Joshua ventured further south to Morocco, earning a Fulbright grant to study Hip Hop in an Arab/Muslim context. Joshua immediately expanded his project into a documentary film and became the first American to interview the leading Hip Hop groups in Morocco. Responding to their need for more performance opportunities, Joshua began developing plans for the country’s first Hip Hop festival, which he convinced the American Embassy and the Coca-Cola Company to co-sponsor. The 3-city concert tour was attended by over 36,000 young Moroccans and reached thousands more, across the globe, in screenings of the eponymous documentary film (www.ilovehiphopinmorocco.com).

Joshua has since gone on to produce independent films and video content, and continues to develop the Hip Hop Diplomacy brand, encompassing a number of cultural diplomacy and youth outreach campaigns, with varied public- and private-sector partners, as well as an online journal of global Hip Hop and geopolitics, www.hiphopdiplomacy.org.